Ivor Novello Awards 2012 agree with all the other awards

There's something charming about the Ivors, which come towards the end of the awards season and sometimes seem like a summary of all the other awards that have been given out thus far. Here are this year's totally unsurprising winners:

Album Award: PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

PRS for Most Performed Work: Adele – Rolling In The Deep

Best Song Musically and Lyrically: Ed Sheeran – The A Team

Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award: Take That

Best Contemporary Song: Lana Del Rey – Video Games

Original Film Score: Alex Heffes -The First Grader

Original Television Score: Martin Phipps – The Shadow Line

Songwriter Of The Year: Adele

Ivors Jazz Award: Stan Tracey

Ivors Inspiration Award: Siouxsie Sioux

Music Special International Award: Jimmy Webb

Outstanding Song Collection Award: Gary Kemp

Lifetime Achievement: Mark Knopfler

The prize for Gary Kemp does give me an excuse to mention the Guardian's piece on how the Spands wrote True, and the surprising detail that... well, it was written by Gary Kemp mainly to try and get off with Clare Grogan:

I met her on Top of the Pops and, at one point, travelled up to Scotland to have tea with her and her mum and dad. Although my feelings were unrequited and the relationship was platonic, it was enough to trigger a song, True, which became the name of our 1983 album, too.

True is about how difficult it is to be honest when you're trying to write a love song to someone. Hence: "Why do I find it hard to write the next line?" The lyrics are full of coded messages to Clare.

This kind of puts True on a par with my second year math exercise book. Although I didn't have a saxaphone solo in that.